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I hear what Doreen and stoic fish are saying and it sounds like at the grassroots they agree with some of what is being said but are hoping others will also step up to the plate to help enact change? Is that accurate?

Perhaps a few of us should step up when the opportunity arises and see what can be achieved?
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YES! And CW will get a new National president at the next election. It was annonced at the last AGM.

(And btw the show in Alberta has extended the deadline to the 20th. Good time to start the support of the things you think they are doing right)

A buyers prospective

I am not a breeder. I am a rider and do quite a bit of shopping for quite a few people. I am both excited by what is being produced in Canada, and incredibly frustrated. As my coach once fumed "The breeders are completely out of touch with what we want." My coach is Dayton G.
Do I feel this way? Sometimes, yes. I do know of several breeders in Alberta who are working their butts off to educate themselves to improve the quality of the stock being produced.

Stoicfish you said something like the people doing the work don't need education, opinions and etc. This makes me exceedingly nervous. EVERYONE needs to continue their education/training in their chosen vocation. I can just imagine telling my neurological clients, "I don't need anymore training to work with you."
If an opinion does not come from a place of research and education, it is a meaningless opinion. Personal experience is valuable, yes, but without seeking outside information one loses the ability to honestly reflect on their self and their work. To me it comes down to an ethical question. Thousands of very athletic, good natured, hard working horses are slaughtered daily. If you cannnot honestly say you are producing better than the best OTTB (as Leah said) than stop. Stop immediately. The best OTTB's that I have had the honour to work with are often making it to 4' jumpers and level3/4 dressage.
I BEG everyone who chooses to bring more lives into this world to reflect. The ethical question is, by breeding this horse, am I honestly doing right by horses.
If this post is offensive to anyone, than again, time for reflection. I foster rescue dogs, and if you don't think breeding requires consideration of ethics than spend a couple days with me.
Leah asked one poster, "why did you pick this filly as an example?" as an honest question. What should have ensued was an indepth discussion of the pedigree, the conformation as was possible to see from the photos, a discussion as to why that cross (the grandam, I believe is Fernando/Ahorn) was made, and what merrits this brings to the table. Why was a Fernando/Ahorn mare used in this manner? What branch of her stam is she from? Has the branch successfully been bred to dressage stallions? This discussion did not happen though.
Leah, you once showed me a pointed list of "rules" for picking a stallion. That would be good to post on her. The one regarding performance, production etc.

n. Thousands of very athletic, good natured, hard working horses are slaughtered daily. If you cannnot honestly say you are producing better than the best OTTB (as Leah said) than stop. Stop immediately. The best OTTB's that I have had the honour to work with are often making it to 4' jumpers and level3/4 dressage.
I BEG everyone who chooses to bring more lives into this world to reflect. The ethical question is, by breeding this horse, am I honestly doing right by horses.

Well said. And very much the point I'm hoping to make. There's too many horses... Yes we need to keep breeding to continue the sport... However there's no need to breed 10-20 (or even one!) average mares with average stallions in hopes that 1 or 2 are spectacular and the rest are various ranges of mediocre.

Breed the best to the best and you will get various ranges of talent but a much higher likelihood of a desireable, quality animal who is less likely to end up at fort McLeod. There WILL be amateur horses in that mix.. So long as temperament is considered.

Stoicfish you said something like the people doing the work don't need education, opinions and etc. This makes me exceedingly nervous. EVERYONE needs to continue their education/training in their chosen vocation. I can just imagine telling my neurological clients, "I don't need anymore training to work with you."
If an opinion does not come from a place of research and education, it is a meaningless opinion. Personal experience is valuable, yes, but without seeking outside information one loses the ability to honestly reflect on their self and their work. To me it comes down to an ethical question. Thousands of very athletic, good natured, hard working horses are slaughtered daily. If you cannnot honestly say you are producing better than the best OTTB (as Leah said) than stop. Stop immediately. The best OTTB's that I have had the honour to work with are often making it to 4' jumpers and level3/4 dressage. I BEG everyone who chooses to bring more lives into this world to reflect. The ethical question is, by breeding this horse, am I honestly doing right by horses. If this post is offensive to anyone, than again, time for reflection. I foster rescue dogs, and if you don't think breeding requires consideration of ethics than spend a couple days with me.Leah asked one poster, "why did you pick this filly as an example?" as an honest question. What should have ensued was an indepth discussion of the pedigree, the conformation as was possible to see from the photos, a discussion as to why that cross (the grandam, I believe is Fernando/Ahorn) was made, and what merrits this brings to the table. Why was a Fernando/Ahorn mare used in this manner? What branch of her stam is she from? Has the branch successfully been bred to dressage stallions? This discussion did not happen though.
Leah, you once showed me a pointed list of "rules" for picking a stallion. That would be good to post on her. The one regarding performance, production etc.

Ok lets be fair and not take this out of context. What was said was in response to people suggesting they (the people on this thread) were just educating with their suggestions. That the "education" would help with the change in how CW was operated. My point was that the people within the organization that are trying to change things (at the expense of their own time and effort) do not need causal internet suggestions and education ...as much as they need help and participation in order to carry out the changes. Ideas are wonderful but unless there is a physicality to them, they don't mean much. Tons of people run the country from the kitchen table...
And I assume you don't mean to be condescending and suggest that these people do not do things to educate themselves and are willing to learn.

And not every time someone likes a horse in an auction does a dissertation ensue as to why. Again let's be fair, just because this is a CW auction, why should I? It is not a bad thing to discus but it is not necessary every time. However, if you feel very strongly about this, there is about a hundred auction threads that need to be revisited.
I went to University for 7 years and have a professional designation, I understand the value of continued education, professionalism and standards.

And moreover if you want to take people to task over horse slaughter and over production, you might want to start with the very successful European breeders. They have built thier success on numbers and culling. They only keep the best but they breed a surplus to get those. Italy eats about a 1/4 million horses a year.
Smoked Sandro Sandwich.
Not all people that breed amateur horses are breeding horse meat. Weather it jumps 5 feet or 3 for a living, if it gets hurt or old it is at the mercy of the owners. I bet amateurs have a better track record for keeping their older horses as pets than professionals who tend to sell them off for the next prospect. Since you are not a breeder and are in favor of education, I thought I would throw that out.

Am I the first one to notice that 5 out of these 14 fancy, well bred, preselected, well prepared, well trained and beautiful horses sold at that sale are in fact registered Canadian Warmbloods!!!!!

Every breed association is made of a group of very different people, and thank goodness for that. People have different ideas about breeding horses and those that are breeding horses that have little demand will not continue for very long...not in this market with current feed prices. All breed association have their share of underperforming breeders and average not so special horses. As others said, in Europe they eat them...or they get used in riding schools giving kids riding lessons.

A breed association is about people, and if you want change, then please get involved. CWHBA is a volunteer run organization, and the reason you don't see a lot of change in the people running the organization, is that no one is stepping up to the plate to get involved. It's easy to criticize from the sidelines. Being involved is very tiring, and an often thankless job. I do so cause I believe in the organization, what it stands for and what it does for horse breeding in Canada.

To get slightly off topic - it seems someone mentioned a few pages back that she breeds with frozen semen, but because it is a bit of an ordeal working with the Canadian organizations on the issue of DNA testing, she has taken her business to another registry.

So I am curious - do CSHA and CWB *not* validate parentage via DNA comparison for every foal before issuing registration papers? If not, is this not a concern for Canadian breeders?

My experience with DNA with CWB has been very frustrating--I had a mare inspected and reg CWB, sent in DNA and only got back a report that gave me her dna profile--no parental verification even though they had the profile of the stallion(which was a different registry), I had to push the point to get them to verify the stallion.
As a very organized person(some what over the top I admit) I have written out exactly what I want for the dna profile--parental verification(as I use frozen semen and want to ensure that at 2 am I used the right guy!!!) I also send in the empty straw of the stallion just to make sure they have all the info--still I get back just a dna profile.
At numerous AGM'S I have voiced my concern and have had others support me as we all know this is important to ANY registry, CWB did mandate that all foals(i do believe--correct me if I am wrong) born in 2010 and there after must have dna--This was met with some objections by some due to the cost(hey I bred 3 to 4 foals per year and at $60 each I think they are worth it).
I registered foal in 2010 sent in the exact same way as I have mentioned and all I got back was a dna profile-no parental verification. WTF???????
The registry I now use, KWPN NA have advised me they will not accept ANY DNA from Canadian Labs. They use UC Davis in California and sorry to say they do it cheaper(I also brought this fact up to AGM--hate to take money away from Canadians) and my turn around time for my papers is less than 2 weeks with the papers indicating PARENTAL VERIFICATION.
This is super important to me as a frozen semen breeder and is non-negotiable for me thus the move.

Hey Jennifer, maybe they are trying to do it now. I just got a letter from CWHBA that they couldn't verify DNA on my colt since the stallion was not on file. I didn't realise he was not on file so told them I would have the stallion owner submit DNA and they said I could just ask for a retest. So maybe they are starting to do it??? I am not sure. It did seem like they attempted to do it in this case.

I know that the CSHA are doing DNA verification - they did so for my filly this year. However, for a small fee - the office will accept 'outside' test results.
When I presented my stallion for licensing, I supplied a DNA report I had done when he was 2yo. Same thing with my mare for sight unseen approval - they used the DNA profile already run and in the hands of the KWPN-NA.

Having been through the stallion licensing with both the CWHBA and the CSHA - my biggest concern is that there are no xray requirements or semen analysis for stallion approval. I'm not saying that they have to take it to the extreme of the KWPN (the other registery with which I choose to work) - but feel that there should be some level of investigation in the stallions as opposed to just seeing them for approx. 20 minutes on one day...

I am so encouraged by some of the comments. Heartbroken by some of the others but hey we need to start somewhere. Knowing what people want is only a small piece of the puzzle. getting what people want is only done by voting; seems the message got out. I see alot of new faces coming out to the AGM this year and I could not be happier. CWHBA needs voters but we also need hands and bodies to enact those wishes. You can just vote and leave the doing to others. I am definately looking forward to meeting alot of new people this fall

Why do we bred and possibly reinvent the wheel? Passion, Patriotism, and possibly Pure insanity. Why should europe get all the fun.

Dont be so hard on warmblood breeders...The Quarterhorse and Thoroughbred breeders overpopulated North America long before Warmblood breeding started. Theres alot of good with Warmblood breeding we dont breed them for a 2 yr old futurity then throw them away broken for one thing. We cant control numbers that other people breed. We cant control quality that other people breed nor should we. (although I was guilty of these same thoughts at one point until my ever smart husband told me thats communismhats , No Thankyou We all have to be accountable to ourselves. We have canadian warmblood breeders that have bred up 3 to 4 generations on their own farms with mostly their own stallions and I can tell you first hand we would all be hard pressed to tell which ones are 4 generation canadian bred horses and which ones came from the imported European mare with the popular stamm behind their name. This is how the stamms were made. If someone has the wherewithall to take on the journey to develop their own stamm power to them. Its different than how I want to do things but in enjoying my freedom to make choice I dont want to take choice away from others. I like all of you just want to breed the best warmblood I can. Some of those breeders give me something to strive for and some of those breeders make some of my offspring shine. Dont mind that either I know we all have a passion to be involved and diversity creates opportunity. We dont want to live in a world without opportunity

I had not read this thread for a few days. I was disheartened when I left it. What I have been reading today tells me that sometimes perhaps its good to air our views. (maybe not so world wide, but good)

Thank you LPiper for your comments. I will be getting in touch with DAyton G. and asking him to come to our agm along with any other trainer that wishes to attend to do a presentation on what trainers are looking for and to put us back in touch with what their market is.

I own 2 cwb mares. I was involved back in the beginning of the 2000's. But since then, I have taken a step back from CWB.

I too, would love to register my foals with a canadian association, as I live in Canada. But marketing wise, it is not the best decision to make, for me.

For those who said that the CWB is based on the Hanoverian model. I would say: WAS based, or WANTED to be based. As someone pointed out, the mares books of CWB are far from being similar to the Hanoverian ones. Then there's the 10 days test thing for the stallions.

For having met couple CWB breeders invovled with the association, and discussed with them several times (very nice people thought ), the main problem I feel is that despite being well aware of how their own registry works, some of them don't have a clue of what is going on "outside" the CWB. They do not know how others associations works, what ARE in fact the standards of quality of other associations or rules for approval, etc. So they cannot compare the work they are doing with what is going on outside. It is like a child signing out loud with his fingers sticked into his ears. Not all of them of course, but some of them. And sometimes it is frustrating because some of the informations they are giving to newbies are not accurate, because of the lack of knowledge about how it works outside of the CWB.

Again, it is not the case of ALL CWB breeders, of course. But I think SOME of the CWB breeders really do need to open their eyes and see why the reputation is questionned by some others and work the issues.

I am trying to assist to as many foals/mares inspections as I can for the last few years, Holsteiners, OldNA, GOV, CWB, VhW. These are the ones available in Quebec and Eastern Ontario. I SEE the difference of overall quality. It IS obvious when you attend one inspection after the other within 1-2 months. Do I see sub-par Hano foals? Rarely, but it happens. Do I see exceptionnal quality CWB foals? Rarely. But it happens. Nothing is white or black, but gee... There were 27 hanoverian foals at the last Hano inspection. I would have picked ANY of them that day, and bring them to CWB inspection, it would have been the Champion foal... It should ring a bell. I went to a CW stallion licencing last year. 4 stallions presented (3 cw reg. and one hano, if I recall correctly). Only one striked me as stallion quality (the hano). The four were approved. 2 of them no gaits at all. One has good canter. 2 of them bad foundations. If, a simple breeder don't feel the stallions were good enough, how come the judges tought otherwise? Lack of experience? Lack of vision? Lack of knowlegde of better?? One of the person on the inspection tour even said to me, very enthusiastically, that it was the BEST stallion group they have seen so far that season. I was... speachless. When I watched - it think it was the Hano licencing - on Clipmyhorse, heck I would have approved all the ones I've seen lol!! They were ALL well prepared, decent movers, good jumpers (speaking generally here). And most of them were not licenced at the end of the journey...

When you never look elsewhere, you cannot SEE if you have good, average or bad breeding stock. Regardless of with wich registry you are doing business with.

Spike's points are superb, realistic, and very forthcoming and I happen to agree. They are points I have made in times past and continue to make. Marketing-wise, we also felt it was best for us to take a step back from CWB and went with Hanoverian and KWPN although I have 1 CWB mare. Spike's comments should not be looked at negatively. Some criticisms are required to engage change and I think CWB has huge potential. My CWB mare's pedigree was looked at by the Hanoverian Verband. They liked her pedigree. Loved the pictures and video I sent. But in the end, in the words of Dr. Christmann, "we cannot accept your beautiful mare because her sire did not undergo a stallion performance test that is regarded well enough". Her sire went through the CWB stallion testing and approval format.

This is VERY discouraging for me as a breeder because this mare is now severely limited; however, because Dr. Christmann really likes my mare, he gave me very specific breeding advice so that her Fillies could be accepted at 3-year-old mare approval keuring for Hanoverian - which in turn opens up a global (hopefully) market for their futures. What else can I do? Must I be expected, as a breeder, to limit my marketability? No way! Economics is a very real part of being a breeder! The perception of the CWB from the verbands around the world is one to take a serious look at. CWB have come far, amazingly far in a very short period of time, but they have farther to go yet. So, from a marketing perspective, we felt forced to limit our CWB productivity. As much as we want to support Canada and all things Canadian, a horse breeder, like all businesses, needs to be competitive in a global market and until the studbook procedures and policies gains approval from verbands world-wide, the CWB remains nonglobal and limited in the market. I hope this changes, because then the sky is the limit.

As has been mentioned before there are good and bad horses in every registry. I have seen very common horses from just about every warmblood registry. I'm talking clunkers, crap movers with fancy brands on their ass. It's business...they all get registered.

If you believe in the concept of having a Canadian Registry, then JOIN US...MAKE IT BETTER. If you think your horses are better then any of ours, please do come join us and prove it. I welcome the competition.

I frequent inspections from a number of different registries and at least in my area, the quality of the CWHBA registered horses is equivalent to the many of the Euro registries. Maybe that differs in other parts of Canada, I don't know.

I think you have to keep in mind why some of these registries don't "accept" Canadian Papers....why would they. Mr. Christmann would like you to register all your horses with his registry, continue to sponsor his travel, and promote semen exports and buying trips to Germany. It's business. Other registries are competition. In Europe most people will support their local national registries, but North America is still pretty much a free market for them....and a very lucrative one.

I'd rather financially support a Canadian Registry. My horses will compete on their own merits for pedigree, type and athleticm, and will go through life with a Canadian identity. I'm less worried about International recognition. If I ever breed a mare special enough for someone to want to import to Europe, I'm sure they will find room for it in a Euro registry. Trust me..if it's special enough, they'll find a place for it.

Why volunteer?

There is a fundamental flaw in this entire discussion. The argument that, if you have criticism you need to join CWHBA and make change suggests that these people aren't actively involved in something. Almost every poster on here with criticism has stated that they have gotten involved, gotten frustrated, and are doing things in a way that best supports their goals and ethics. They are highly involved, just not CWBHA. If CWBHA can't even CONSIDER an outside, educated opinion, will only consider opinions of members who are "doing the work" than boy, is that limiting.

Example, good luck getting Dayton involved. He was involved. He failed a stallion from its testing (no names needed, don't ask). It was then passed anyways. Why would he bother? He was brought in as an expert to improve the organization, and then his ruling was ignored.

Stoicfish, you say everything with a sickly sweet tone, but pretty much tore apart my post without listening to it. I did not say breeding substandard horses will mean they go to slaughter. I said breeding substandard horses is TAKING AWAY homes from quality OTTB's. Why add to a population that currently is having thousands slaughtered daily. I used dogs as my example, so clearly, I am not only considered with warmbloods.

Justifying actions by citing other peoples/groups poor ethics (Europe slaughters, Quaterhorses are over bred etc.) in no way actually justifies anything. Those practices are not ok either.

No, I am not a breeder. But I am your market. And I already feel like I'm banging my head against a wall.

I think you have to keep in mind why some of these registries don't "accept" Canadian Papers....why would they. Mr. Christmann would like you to register all your horses with his registry, continue to sponsor his travel, and promote semen exports and buying trips to Germany. It's business. Other registries are competition. In Europe most people will support their local national registries, but North America is still pretty much a free market for them....and a very lucrative one.

Of course it is business. What do you think we're talking about here? It's also business for our breeders!!

The statement that HanV only wants membership to promote their one business is, in my opinion, a fundamentally flawed statement and one that does not consider all the facts on how these verbands run their organizations. The Hanoverian verband readily accepts into their studbook KWPN horses, Holstein horses, Westfalen horses, Hessen horses, Swedish ASVH and SWANA horses, Danish horses, Belgian's horses because their goal is IMPROVEMENT to the Hanoverians. It is a world-wide well-known fact that Holstein has some of the best jumpers, and so a goodly majority of Hanoverian Studbook jumpers carry extensive holstein blood. The Hanoverian Verband also accepts Thoroughbreds and Anglo-Arabians. They stand at 3 Anglo-Arabian stallions at Celle alone and one of those stallions competes in the International showjumping ring and does very well for himself. But they will not currently accept a CWHBA stallion, except that they require him to undergo the 70-day test or meet up to the rigorous sport expectations.

And while we are picking on verbands, just try to get a CWHBA stallion accepted by Holstein. Or even American Holstein, KWPN-NA, SWANA, AHS - these are all N.A. registries. All registries have a quality control element. If CWHBA does not conform to similiar rigorous standards, then the CW horses will not be competitive.

Yes, the Hanoverian Verband (and other verbands) want membership. Of course they do. So does the CWHBA. That's not even the issue. The issue is, while they will look at and approve my ASVH/SWANA mare, my KWPN mare and even my ISR/OLD mare, they will not go near a CWHBA mare if her sire was only sent through the CWHBA stallion test. They would probably look at a CWHBA mare whose sire went through the North American 70-day test, however, as long as he scored results high enough to meet their expectations.

It's not all about a hunger for money for memberships from the verband. It is purely a QUALITY CONTROL ISSUE. In the eyes of most verbands, the CW stallion test does not require stallions to meet the rigorous testing parameters required of their own stallions who must compete for acceptance even within their own registry. Putting aside the fact that first CW does not have the sheer numbers, just look at the stat for this year's 2-year-old HanV stallion selection process. Out of about 640 prospects, roughly 106 stallions made the cut to enter the 2-year-old licensing, including 1 Canadian-bred stallion. Of those, only a percentage will be accepted. The rest gelded. When they get to their 3-year-old 70-day test, it will be whittle down to a class of 20-40. The rest are gelded. The criteria is VERY TOUGH. They just don't go and accept any stallion. Just to reiterate, my point here was not the numbers, but rather highlighting the quality control process in the stallion selection. All verbands and registries in the entire Europe including the UK, and now America require stallions to go through very similar rigorous quality control process, otherwise known as the 70-day stallion test. America's 70-day test is approved by the European registries. America is very gracious and the test is open to American and Canadian stallions to attend it.

It might be just a very simple solution for the CWHBA to just mandate that all CW stallions to go through the rigorous selection process of the 70-day stallion test held at Silver Creek in order to be accepted into the CW studbook, as long as CW holds up to a strict score-point threshold. A stallion who stands up to that kind of scrutiny and obtains good scores at the 70-day test is one who has truly conformed to the standards maintained by ALL other registries around the world. All CW stallion owners want to have their stallions marketable in other registries because it opens up their stallion's breeding possibilities!

From a breeder's perspective, we are not breeding just for riding stock. Quite frankly, riding stock and breeding stock are 2 very different horses. As a breeder, we want our foals to be available for sale by ALL breeders of North America and all riders of North America - this is a lovely big market. I repeat the point - a breeder also wants their breeding stock available to the entire North American BREEDING market. An American breeder is not going to buy a CWHBA mare for their broodmare pool unless they can also get her approved with other registries - why would they want to do that? Because they want as wide a range of stallion possibilities available to them and marketing choices that come with it. And does CWHBA come down to Virginia or Florida to inspect the CWHBA foals that are born from the CWHBA mare?? No. So, now what? That breeder has no choice, but to make good and sure this mare can be approved with registry choices available in the United States. Stop thinking "just Canada", because I assure you, breeders never think "Just Canada" because it profoundly limits marketing choices. We think North American wide. And a few of us get lucky and have horses in Europe too.

Breeding is ALL about marketing. Breeders are marketing to our riders - Canadian and American, and a few to Europe. We are marketing to our fellow breeders. Right now, as it stands, a CWHBA mare sired by a CWHBA-only stallion can only be sold to a CWHBA breeder which is a very small percentage of the perceived market choices.

PS: To add, this is a fantastic discussion. The points have been made by not just me, but also others who have bravely come forward. My comments are NOT to dismiss CW as unable to compete because this is a chance to hear what the market is telling the CW so they can become MORE competitive. There are good horses in the CW, but their membership need help to make these good horses marketable to the entire world. It's certainly possible and I believe the potential exists. CW is, on the world scale, a brand-spanking new registry and it is going through growing pains. The registry, like others preceeding it, needs to ensure it continues the work on their standards and procedures to be more competitive world-wide. This is enormous work. I say that statement with my eyes wide open, because the word "enormous work" is an extreme understatement. But the work needs to be done and it starts with listening to what the breeders and the market say with wide open ears. Some things can be done soon, some changes take some time and this is fine and well, as long as changes are indeed made. All we are asking is that CW hear us, absorb the comments, and decide on how best to proceed to try to make changes. That's all we are asking.